May 27, 2011

What a great Friday...as we lead up to Memorial Day weekend!! Yay! I have a great feature for you today... My friend Cristin from Sew This is My Life. We met through our branch of MQG and have been quilting buddies ever since (going to meet Amy Butler and road tripping the Cincy Quilt Show). She has a fantastic modern style, let's learn more about her....

Cristin of Worthington, OH

Occupation: I'm technically a Stay at Home Mom and Wife, but used to work in the Medical Insurance industry and still do some VERY part time work from home for my old employer.

Significant Other/Kids/Pets: I'm married to an Electrical Engineer for 7 years this month... We have a 14mo old son named Eli who is so silly, and we love him to pieces... and a doggie named Hazel, she's part Lhasa Apso and part Poodle.

# Years Quilting: 2.5 years

Hand or machine piecing or quilting: I absolutely prefer machine piecing for the speed (as I have very little sewing time with a 1yo running around!) but I do have a small box of hand-sewn hexagons, which is technically "English paper piecing" although I have yet to do anything with those hexagons. Someday, I'm sure!

As for quilting, I also prefer machine due to: 1) Speed 2)Speed and 3) SPEED

I enjoy quilting smaller quilts on my little home sewing machine, but I also rent time on a Mid-Arm quilting machine at my LQS. If you have access to a mid or long-arm quilting machine, I HIGHLY recommend it! Its precise, no wrestling with a huge quilt at home, and your quilting design options are virtually endless! I do someday plan to try hand quilting, but I'm sure that won't happen for years.

How you learned to quilt: About 5 years ago my MIL invited me to take a beginners quilting class with her at Joanns. We went, had a fun time, and I made a wall-hanging size quilt. Those classes gave me a good foundation for quilting, although I'd say online tutorials from bloggers and YouTube taught me all the other fun techniques. I've also been in two Virtual Quilting Bees on Flickr... and that forced me to try new blocks and techniques as well.

Favorite Completed Project Description:My favorite quilt thus far is the Tufted Tweets Lattice Quilt that I made for my sister and her new husband for Christmas, although I didn't finish it until the end of January. In Sept '10 I had first seen a lattice quilt from Film in the Fridge and just knew I wanted to make one. I figured out how to make the block (bigger, as that means LESS blocks, right?!) and started working away. I thought I had plenty of time to finish it by Christmas but I then got talked into doing my first Craft Show which was in December so I set aside said quilt and worked on craft show items.... thus this quilt was late, but still well received. I still have the Purple and Green/Blue colorways of Tufted Tweets so I still want to make one for myself. Again... someday!

Quilting workstation setup: My setup is pretty basic, as I have to share with our home office, and general storage. We have a teeny 2 bedroom town home so I've been forced into the basement (albeit nicely finished!) once we found out Eli would be joining us. I have a set of shelves to store fabric, a cutting table that folds down to 7" wide, and an old Ikea kitchen table that serves as my sewing table. It works just nicely for me, although I would KILL for some natural light! Maybe in our next home, which we're working on as we speak! We've had over half a dozen showings, but no offers yet... sigh.

Machine(s) you sew on: About 3 years ago I was using my moms old Sears Kenmore which is definitely older than I am (nothing wrong with that!) But it was giving me a lot of problems, so I took it to my local sewing machine repair guy for a tune up. Little did I know that my husband and MIL snuck in and purchased a brand new Janome Magnolia for me, while my old machine was being fixed! They presented it to me on my birthday, before my old one was even ready. It was a spectacular birthday, to be sure! Side note: My Janome is nothing fancy, is not high-end, but it works great for me right now! Someday I might upgrade just so I have a wider throat to wrestle quilts through... and maybe more stitches per minute too.

Favorite tool in your sewing room: I have a lot of favorite sewing tools: my Olfa rotary cutter, my Gingher knife blade scissors, my huge cutting mat that covers the entire cutting table (but its in storage right now!) But my all time favorite is probably my open toed free-motion foot. I bought the non-modified foot from my local sewing machine repair shop, and he took out his little rotary grinder and notched out about 1/3" from the front, and now its open! And I can see what I'm quilting, and its fabulous!

2 comments:

Awesome post! I was reading then realized we're from the same neck of the woods, lol, which is nice. While I have a moment I'll be moseying a bit through both blogs before my kiddo's wake from nap and the craziness begins once again! So excited to maybe gain some momentum to try some more quilting, I've done some in the past but everything was very relaxed and I didn't use a pattern or anything. Of course the end result wasn't as fantastic, but I think I'm just one of those "fly by the seat of my pants and see where creativity takes me" sort of people, lol. If you have a minute sometime, feel free to stop by my "place" too. Thanks!

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